By Drew Grant 2/24 6:56pm

The 85th Academy Awards

The Best Picture category isn't the only thing that bulked up.

The 85th Annual Academy Awards Live Chat, Hosted by the Dog From Family Guy

Update: Well, now we have an extra hour and a half of the red carpet! Talk amongst yourselves!

What is it about the Academy Awards? Intellectually, it’s hard to muster up that much enthusiasm about who “wore it best” (Ang Lee) or how modest Katniss will be in her acceptance speech, hopefully avoiding a First Wives’ Club reference that sounded like she was hating on Meryl Streep this time. And yet … we still feel compelled to watch. Maybe it’s because secretly, deep down, we still find it fascinating that the guy who does the voice of Stewie looks like the host of a reality game show about finding true love by having a dance-off on a stripper pole.

Or maybe it’s because we’re just suckers, who deep down believe that Beasts of the Southern Wild might still possibly have a chance against Argo or Lincoln.

Come join us, will you, on this the most magical of evenings for producers, people who are married to movie stars, and dress designers? We’ll be hosting a live chat below. Just click the big countdown button and you’re all set. Got it?

Great. Read More

By Drew Grant 2/24 10:59am

Academy Awards

9 Photos

oscar predictions

Leo and Tigers and Ben Affleck, (Arg)O My!: Who Will Be the Sorest Loser at Tonight’s Academy Awards?

Tonight is the 85th Academy Awards, and for all intents and purposes it should be a good one. Look at all those serious films, and the one movie by Quentin Tarantino! And with big snubs for Best Director for both Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, does that mean one of them will be be sweeping up the Best Picture Award as a consolation prize? And most importantly, is it too late to write in a ballot for Javier Bardem in Skyfall? Because he was great. Read More

By Rex Reed 9/18/12 5:11pm

movies

Anderson and Phoenix.

The Master Loses Control of Its Flock: Underserved Cast Overacts in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Pretentious Sermon

I never cease to be amused by the pile of unmitigated crap that gets shoveled off onto the moviegoing public by pretentious critics. They’re at it again with The Master, a load of film-festival tripe that was booed in Venice and greeted with massive walkouts in Toronto but is now being defended in an organized rescue mission that hopes to develop a minor cult following in New York before the whole thing mercifully vanishes in a puff of twaddle. With an embarrassing, overwrought performance by the dependably creeped-out Joaquin Phoenix that has to be the most hysterically misguided overacting since Dennis Hopper played Napoleon and Harpo Marx played Sir Isaac Newton in The Story of Mankind, I’m tempted to call it the worst thing I have seen this year, but there are two more coming up—Terrence Malick’s dystopic To the Wonder and a diabolically demented time-travel farce called Cloud Atlas—that are even worse. I will also refrain from labeling The Master “the worst movie I’ve ever seen!” because like the proverbial boy who cried wolf, I’ve blurted that cry of despair so many times, who would believe me?It might not even be the worst movie ever made, depending on how you feel about such hollow, juvenile and superficial trash as I  ♥ Huckabees, Brewster McCloud, Punch-Drunk Love, Mulholland Drive, The Royal Tenenbaums, Lost Highway, Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses and … well, as they said in Hollywood during the McCarthy witch hunts, “the list goes on.”  Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 7/20/12 11:26am

movies

New Paul Thomas Anderson Trailer Shows Birth of Scientology

The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film since 2007′s There Will Be Blood, is said to tell the story of Scientology’s inception–and its first full-length trailer, indeed, shows Philip Seymour Hoffman issuing an “audit”-like verbal test to a distressed Joaquin Phoenix. The trailer, on the whole, is too cryptic to allow for much plot detail–but Read More

By Christopher Rosen 2/13/09 1:33pm

Opening this Valentine’s Day Weekend: Camp Crystal Lake is for Lovers! Plus, Clive Owen Fights a Bank

As the Hollywood box office machine chugs along (in case you were wondering, Paul Blart will hit $100 million dollars this weekend; expect the rain of frogs to follow shortly thereafter), we’ve found ourselves concentrating on larger issues besides film revenue. Like: Is anyone actually buying this Joaquin Phoenix thing? His whole “I’m-retiring-from-acting-to-become-a-rap-star-and-Casey-Affleck-is-going-to-film-it” shtick has Read More

By Sara Vilkomerson 2/10/09 8:04pm

Sara Vilkomerson’s Guide To This Week’s Movies: Phoenix Rising, We Hope!

We’ve found ourselves spending an awful lot of time lately wondering just what the heck is happening with Joaquin Phoenix. Much has been made of the so-called retirement and maybe rap career and is-it-a-hoax-or-is-he-a-genius-or-has-he-just-lost-his-mind status these days. For the record, we’d like to note that we’re celebrating our 20-year anniversary of digging this weirdo, which Read More

By Andrew Sarris 2/10/09 6:45pm

Joaquin In the Sand

Two Lovers
Running time 110 minutes
Written by James Gray and Richard Menello
Directed by James Gray
Starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix

James Gray’s Two Lovers, from a screenplay by Mr. Gray and Richard Menello, manages to immerse itself in the community of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, to such an Read More